Life with no Sunnydale
by Ryoko-chan
Summary: Buffy wakes up from her dreams and is now freed from the insane asylum. How will life for her be? Come check it out!


Life with No Sunnydale  
  
Note: This story takes after the episode "Normal Again" of the sixth season. It also takes place right after the end of the same season. I had always wondered "what if Buffy really was in an insane asylum?" so I came up with these ideas. Maybe they've already been used by others, which I have not read. Please enjoy my first Buffy the Vampire Slayer fic.  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters and fictional towns named in the popular TV series.   
  
Acknowledgments: I would like to thank those who have inspired me to write the fic. Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy, without him, no Buffy would be around. Sarah Michelle Gellar who has made Buffy my favorite TV character and the rest of the Buffy cast. And last but no least, all the writers of the Buffy books and the writers of the Buffy episodes.   
  
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Chapter 1: The Slayer Re-born  
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A soft sun lit the partly cloudy skies of the city of angels. It had been the home to many different people. Many of whom did not know of the world a special woman had dreamt about. This woman was Buffy Summers or as she was known in her world, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.   
  
She had been in one of the many insane asylums located in the heart of Los Angeles for six years now. She had only once woken up from that dream to learn from her parents, Hank and Joyce Summers, that it was just that, a dream. But in her world, the world in which a town called Sunnydale existed had just been in the brink of destruction because the death of someone near to them had caused one of her best friends to turn to the dark arts for revenge.   
  
Many outlandish things had happened to her in that world. Facing death just about three times at the tender age of 21 was the common thing to her. After all, she was the Chosen One, the Slayer. She had been lucky because at her age, as a slayer, she had been lucky to be alive. The normal life span of a slayer ended at the age of 18 or earlier.   
  
The slayer, whose duty was to kill vampires, had loved two of them. And one of them still reigned in her heart. This vampire lived in L.A. in her own world. His name had been Angelus hundreds of years ago, but his killing the daughter of a gypsy had earned him a soul, which tormented him for many years. This Angelus had been sired by Darla and from Angelus, Drusilla and William the Bloody, otherwise known as Spike, came to being also. Spike had been the other vampire whom the slayer had never admitted love to, but felt it somewhere deep inside.  
  
Sunnydale held a hellmouth, which attracted many demons and vampires and beings of the sort. It had also given Buffy the gift of many friendships and loves. Her best friends had been Willow Rosenberg, a witch, and Xander Harris. Her watcher, whom was now back from England, was Rupert Giles. In that world, Buffy hardly ever saw her father Hank and had lost her mother Joyce to a brain tumor. And maybe as a gift, she had gained a key that was sent to her by the monks in the form of a sister. But all that was not reality.   
  
Reality was that Buffy Summers, 21, had been in an insane asylum for six years of her life. And she was about to wake up.  
  
It was a pleasant late summer day in the Open Arms (*1) Los Angeles Insane Asylum. Many people were there varying in age. Buffy Summers was one of the occupants. She had just woken up from a drug that had made her go to sleep the previous night. She noticed that Hank and Joyce were sitting next to her, Joyce holding her hand. These people seemed very familiar to her. The odd thing was that Hank was there and so was Joyce. Buffy blinked a little bit more and tried to speak. "Am I in heaven?" she asked the other two occupants of the room.  
  
"No, honey," Joyce reassured her, squeezing her hand slightly. She smiled down at Buffy and then at Hank. "Hank, why don't you go call the doctor?"  
  
Hank nodded and gave Buffy a small peck in her right cheek before leaving.   
  
"Mom, where am I? Where's Willow? Is she okay? Is everyone okay?"  
  
Joyce sighed, "Buffy, the doctor said that once you woke up it would be okay for you to come home with us."  
  
"Mom, I asked you a question. Where are they?"  
  
"They? Who are you talking about?"  
  
"My friends and Dawn and Giles..."  
  
Joyce sighed again, "Buffy, you are no longer in that place you imagined. You're in the real world. Your father and I have been waiting a long time for you to come to and it looks like you finally have. We're going home and that's that. Some of your old friends are going to be there too."  
  
Buffy shook her head, "what do you mean 'I imagined them'? I didn't imagine them! You were there too, mom! But you died, and then, I had to take care of Dawn, but then I died and Willow was so mad she almost made this world end... why are you telling me that this didn't happen? Something went wrong, didn't it?"  
  
Joyce stood up and dropped Buffy's hand, "none of what you are talking about ever happened or existed. Buffy, snap out of it! You imagined them and if you continue with this foolishness, as much as it pains me, you will have to remain in this awful place."  
  
Hank had entered the room with the doctor right after Joyce had gone off on Buffy.   
  
"Mrs. Summers, as I have told your husband, Buffy will fall back into those episodes she has fallen under. I will tell you this, you can continue to let Buffy stay here or both of you have to be patient and help her through the spells," Doctor Thompson told her.   
  
Hank went near to Buffy and held her hand, "I think it might be best if she had someone she knew help her out. Right, honey?"  
  
Joyce smiled and nodded. "It would be best if it's not such a problem to take her out, Doctor Thompson."  
  
"I think Mr. Summers has a good point. We haven't done enough in the six years that she has been institutionalized in this establishment. We will miss her, but she does need help from those she loves."  
  
"Then, it's settled?" Hank asked.   
  
"Yes, I will ask you to come to my office to fill some forms to allow us to free her into your care and you can have Buffy home by tomorrow at noon."  
  
=The next day=  
  
Hank, Joyce and Buffy had arrived at the quaint apartment that they had bought a year after Buffy was institutionalized. The house had three rooms, three bathrooms and a pool in the yard.   
  
Joyce helped Buffy to her room while Hank carried the small suitcase that they had taken with Buffy.  
  
Buffy was still confused, she barely remembered the old house in which they used to live in so many years ago and she was enjoying the fact that her parents were still together and alive for once. She hugged her mother tighter remembering that she was alive, but deep inside, she hurt because she did not have the confort of her best friends with her. She did feel welcomed by her old high school friends but she sensed that weirdness in them. Her best friend in L.A., Jessica, had already asked her to accompany her and a few more of their high school buddies to go shopping that next weekend. Joyce had said that if Buffy showed any signs of productivity, she would call them.   
  
Joyce had informed Buffy that she was to take the G.E.D. whenever she felt she could take it so that she could start going to college at UCLA by hopefully spring of the next year.   
  
"Mom?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Yes, dear?"  
  
"Do you think I can just watch TV for the rest of the day? I want to catch up with the world I've been so out of, as dad puts it."  
  
Joyce smiled, "sure. You can just watch the news or watch whatever you'd like. Just call us if you need something, okay?"  
  
Buffy returned her mother a smile, "mom, the last time I checked I was 21 years old. To my knowledge, I can take care of myself."  
  
"Well, you do remember that we haven't had you home for six years don't you? Parents do have the right to spoil their child no matter what."  
  
Buffy's smile brightened a little, "okay, mom. If I need some explaining on the news or something like that, I'll call you guys, okay?"  
  
Joyce left her room and Buffy sat on the edge of her bed as she turned on her TV set. She roamed through the channels watching the different shows, some news in both English and Spanish and the many commercials that the TV stations had to offer. She had stopped the changing channels once she had stopped at the news channel called CNN. She watched the news for a few moments listening intently to the news from around the world. Buffy had then called her mom as a report that she had just heard stunned her.   
  
"What is it, honey?"  
  
"What's this...?" she asked her as she turned up the volume to the TV.  
  
"Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the attacks from September 11th and America is on alert. John Morrow with the full story (*2)..."  
  
Joyce turned off the TV and started to explain what had happened the previous year on September 11th. Yes, it was September 10th, a day before the anniversary. Buffy listened to every word her mother had told her, she was sure that she had heard about this somehow but she didn't remember if it was in Sunnydale or at the insane asylum. After Joyce had finished telling Buffy everything about the attacks, Buffy asked if they could go out to look for videos about what had happened in the six years that Buffy had been asleep. And Buffy learned. She had been reborn and she had to face a world that was quite unknown to her.   
  
That weekend, she was to go shopping with Jessica and their friends and the week after the one of her return, Buffy was to take the G.E.D. and if she passed, apply to colleges.   
  
  
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(*1) I don't think this is the name of the insane asylum Buffy was in so I made it up.  
(*2) I turn to watch CNN a lot so Buffy could be watching too, this was not from any real report and I'm sure a guy named John Morrow is not a reporter for them.  
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In the next chapter: The setting has been set for the awakening of Buffy. How will she take to the six years that had passed her by and her new friends? Will she ever return to Sunnydale? Please join me in the next chapter as Buffy tries to settle in her life and finds a few surprises in chapter 2: Meeting Old Friends. 


End file.
